Wednesday, 11 March 2009

I am sure you have all been in situations that are coincidental some call it fate others destiny, some just put it down to luck. I like to call it divine design, a phrase coined by Deepak Chopra, the author of the infamous ' Seven Spiritual Laws of Success. In this very book Deepak, talks about the law of least effort, and how we all manifest everything that happens within a lives. He states once we recognise this, and become conscious of our thoughts, we can apply the law of least effort, to bring us everything we desire.

I'm sure the sceptic in you is saying yeah right, well check this for a story. I have been living the life of a freelance marketing consultant for while now, I have worked with some amazing people, but as you know the freelance world can be a bit sparadic. Because of this I thought it may be good to get a part-time marketing position for 2-3 days a week to tide me over. Within 24 hours of breathing life into this thought, I check Gumtree and see what in essence appears to be the perfect job post. So perfect that I dont think I could have wrote a more fitting job description myself.

'A marketing assistant / exec assistant to grow our business and consumer brands, help radically raise our profile, and change the world a little bit.' http://www.inner-revolution.com/

I haven't got the position yet, but if this doesn't demonstrate the law of least effort I dont know what does. So in closing the more aware we become of the power within I thought, the more successful as people we are.

Monday, 9 March 2009

For the creative person, fear is always nearby. But in spite of the close proximity, it’s usually a very strained relationship. Fear is one of those emotions that most of us are trying not to have. Because it doesn’t feel good, it’s been coded as a so-called “negative” emotion. And we’re so keen to avoid this negative emotion that we find ourselves avoiding situations that elicit fear for us, so we code the fear-inducing situations as “negative” as well.

But, fear isn’t bad at all. All emotions have a positive purpose that serves us. Have you ever thought about the positive purpose of your fear?

Fear is a signal you’re learning

Because we’re designed this way, we tend to respond to ALL unfamiliar experiences with fear - even if they’re not dangerous. So long as you’re taking yourself into new territory, and growing, you’ll always feel some fear along the way. From a creativity point of view, fear is useful because it makes you more alert when you’re learning and growing. And fear is a signal that you’re learning. In fact, if you’re telling yourself you’re learning in a particular area of your life, yet you’re not feeling any fear in that area of your life, you’re probably not learning.

Fear lets you know what’s important to you

A third purpose of fear is that fear let’s us know what’s really important to us. Think about it: when something isn’t important to you, you probably don’t care what happens with it, and you won’t feel fear then. It’s the stuff that’s closest to our hearts, that we really care about, that we feel the most fear about - because it matters to us how things work out. With so many choices available to us these days, alot of creative people find it difficult to figure out what’s really important to them and decide what they want in life. A really counter-intuitive, but easy way to figure whether something is genuinely important to you is to notice how much fear you have about it. The more important it is to you, the bigger your fear will probably be.

Fear holds creative tension

When there’s an unresolved problem or a gap between where we are and where we want to be, a tension develops. The bigger the gap, the greater the tension, and fear we’ll feel. Alot of the time, in order to relieve the tension, we change our vision of where we want to be or stop asking that unresolved question. Successful creative's embrace this tension, knowing that tension is an important part of the creative process. Creative tension motivates our unconscious mind to continue searching for a resolution, even while we go on with our other tasks or go to sleep at night, those epiphanies that you have, where the idea just seems to have popped into your head out of nowhere.

So next time you feel afraid, stop and remind yourself that fear works. And then check which purpose your fear is serving, and ask yourself, “Knowing that this is the purpose of my fear, what would I love to do next?”

Monday, 2 March 2009

Branded TV stations have had a chequered history. Audi TV launched in 2005 to a mixed reception, but is still going strong. Meanwhile, Bud.tv from Budweiser recently pulled the plug as it failed to attract the young, male-dominated crowd it was targeting as visitors to its 'destination' website.

So what will the fate be for adidas.tv, which soft-launched last week on adidas.com's basketball sub-site? There already seems some controversy surrounding the launch.

A selection of adidas-branded video clips could be downloaded from the beta site via a free adidas-branded player and embedded into blogs or any one of 25 social networks that are compatible with the service. This is great branding tool for adidas that will help spread its content far and wide across the net. There was also the adidas.tv widget which will relay regular content updates when these become available on the hub. The site was initially slated to offer 75 clips created by adidas and its partners, but this is expected to increase quickly, with channels covering specific sports, alongside a dedicated adidas Originals channel hosting short films. In short, adidas.tv is expected to become a hub for all adidas video content.

I believe adidas is well positioned to create content which is well suited to the sports community and will be picked up across the web by there intended audience. That isn't to say that every brand can provide the correct engaging content for the audience they serve. Adidas has a history of non-traditional marketing, and regular gets involved in collabarations which don't necceasarilly just embrace sport culture but youth culture in general. This is why i think adidas.tv wil be a success. I am sure more brands which try and follow suit as it becomes increasingly difficult to reach your target audience, as media becomes more and more diverse.